:clddrk: I booked the camp site this morning and ordered the new tent from Cabelas (we got the 1610). We are going camping for our vacation this year. We are off to the sunny beaches of Wells, ME in a few short weeks to spend 4 days playing in the surf, challenging each other to exciting rounds of mini golf and eating some fresh, delicious seafood. Now I know we’re not going for the traditional week or two but there are 2 major extenuating factors that prohibit that kind of insanity:

  1. We are poor
  2. We have 4 children ages 8, 4, 2 and 1

Need I say more? Poverty requires that we camp; simply put we cannot afford $175 a night for a hotel – or in many cases for 2 rooms because they tell us room capacity is 4 persons (smells like a marketing scam to me – appeal to families and then tell them they need to split up and pay double to stay in your resort). Even camping is still $45 a night for us and I know that sounds cheap but when you have NO MONEY it’s a fortune.

It is going to be stressful with the youngest children also. We’ve camped with the under 2 set before and it is time, attention and energy consuming bordering on the voracious. But the alternative is staying home with the kids all the time and never getting out and showing them that there is a world beyond our small town. They need the exposure, the knowledge that there is more to see and be a part of than just their own little nuclear existence.

I think one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was traveling the country. We took 2-3 vacations a year and I’ve been to over half the states in the U.S. Traveling opened me up to going to college 1000 miles away from home in a place I’d never been before without any fears of flying in and out of O’Hare on school breaks. When we venture to large metropolitan areas I do the driving – I’m not afraid or overwhelmed by the city. I’ve been there before.

I want my children to have the same experiences that I was lucky enough to have. I want them to be well read, well traveled; have a grand appreciation for art and music. My parents gave me the gift of diversity, of a well rounded education both in and out of school and I intend to do what I can to give the same opportunities to my own children. No matter how minute they might seem.